Websphere console - Monitor server events such as server restart

Question

I am absolutely not familiar with WebSphere and haven't found anything about this within the last 30 of minutes web research.

Is there a view where i can obtain a list of server events such as starts-, stops- or restarts in the web console of a WAS 8.5 application server?

What i tried: 30 Minute Web research.

My workaround :I always used our Splunk to filter for example "Starting Application..." to identify the time a Application was started based on the log events. I apply similar filters to recognize server restarts.

Answer 1

By default there is no such view. There are at least 2 potential solutions, that you could use, but your workaround might be easier ;-) :

1. Enable Runtime Messages

In the web console go to Troubleshooting > Runtime Messages > Runtime information.
Enable Info level, save and restart. Then you will be able to filter massages using filter in the table and providing message fragment.

2. Use HPEL logging and filtering

You can switch default logging to HPEL in the Logging and tracing > server1 > Switch to HPEL. After that your logging will be done in binary form (much better performance) and you will be able to do searches based on the event code, message content etc. You will be able to view log either from the console Logging and tracing > server1 > JVM Logs > Runtime with search/filtering capability, or from command line using logviewer tool. Tool can be used a bit like tail/grep combination and print only relevant information or information from specified application. In this case you will also be able to view past events also, as in Runtime messages you see only events from server startup.

3. Custom MBean listener

You could write code to listen on events generated by the server, but probably too much effort for your need.

See also:

• Runtime events
• HPEL overview
• LogViewer tool